A teacher by profession, but is now in his 38th year as a football writer. Has written for "Soccer Action" (Melbourne), "Australian Soccer Weekly" (Sydney) and "World Soccer" (London), as well as for several Tasmanian newspapers. Currently contributing to "Goal!Weekly" in Melbourne and the Australian magazine "Soccer International". Played for Croatia-Glenorchy, Caledonians, Metro, Rapid and University in Tasmania, as well as in the United States of America. Coached University, Metro and Croatia-Glenorchy.

Morton way ahead of the pack, and South to show no mercy to Warriors

You have to get up early to beat Ken Morton’s planning for football success.

Morton, coach of inaugural Victory League champions South Hobart, will have a new, tall English player in Hobart arriving today, although he will not play until next season, and Morton is already talking about a clear-out at the club of up to six or seven players before the 2014 season.

“We’ll probably have about six or seven changes,” said Morton at today’s media conference at Football Federation Tasmania headquarters prior to Sunday’s Victory League clash with fourth-placed Olympia Warriors.

“We’ll lose one or two, as you normally do, you know, with rotation. They’ll move away for better challenges. Some will move overseas, et cetera, on working holidays.

“But, we’ll just look to bring in and, hopefully, they’ll be key players.

“Most of your work is done in pre-season for picking your squads.

“We’ll be looking at players for next year. We’ve already identified the players we want to bring in.

“We try to get competition across the board, two or three good keepers, three or four wingers that are very good players, challenging each other, and we just try and get players that are competitive and want to play football and win matches.

“So far we’ve been fortunate and successful with them.

“We’ve had three or four players that we’ve already talked to and we believe that we’ll sign them.

“And, not from Tasmania. We’re not looking here. We’re looking from outside.

“[The Englishman] is six-foot one, an Andy Brennan-type striker. Quick, fast, so we hope somebody like that can rock up and do a great job for us.”

There are changes in the wind, however, and Football Federation Australia are hoping to implement a points system for players of clubs that hope to be part of the new National Premier League format across the Australian States.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Morton. “I think all clubs are going to have to manage the [new] points system.

I’m sure the new points system will come in. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn.

“The new points system of about 275 or 280 points, and if you’re over a certain age you accumulate points, [and] if you’re from overseas you accumulate more points.

“If you’re a home-grown talent, then your points decrease, so you have to work around that system and that’ll not be so easy.

“We’ll have to manage that.

“Mizael [for example] would start with 10 and he’d be 10 because he’s a foreigner and he’s 19 or 20, so he’d probably be 20 points.

“You only need ten of them like that and...

“If you’re over 28, I think you pick up big points.”

Photo: Mizael contemplates the proposed points system [PlessPix]

The points system is being pushed by Football Federation Australia and will be an integral part of the proposed NPL system.

South Hobart will be Tasmania’s first participants in the NPL system when they take on South Australian champions Metro Stars in the semi-final of the NPL interstate series later this season.

“It’s not FFT,” said Morton. It’s FFA that are forcing it and, if we want to be in National Premier League, then we have to be aligned with the other leagues.

“The other leagues will push it.”

Morton harked back to previous State Leagues in Tasmania, when young local players benefited from the experience provided by imports.

“The local players improved by playing with better players, international-type players,” he said. “With a different style, they’d improve, and work harder to equal the players that are better than them.

“There was a time when the league here was very, very strong. The locals were strong.

“We’re not sure, but the feedback we’re getting is that it [the points system] will come in.”

South Hobart’s Brazilian import, Mizael Linhares Caires, said the champions would be out to win against Olympia on Sunday.

“We’re going for the three points and it doesn’t matter which club it is against,” said Mizael.

“Our focus will be to continue winning, playing well, playing entertaining football and having a go at Olympia,” Morton said.

“We want to do well. We want to progress.

“At any club, when you have success, you’re driven by that success and you want to do better every time you take the field, and it’s no different at South Hobart.

“We train really hard, we put a lot of work into our games and preparation and when we go into the games we want to win them and we expect 100 per cent from every player.”

Morton said the club has an active network of scouts and contacts in the UK and Europe and, in the case of the NPL finals series, had people to watch South Hobart’s opponents from South Australia.

Morton said the wet weather had hampered outdoor training at Wellesley Park but the club had utilised Queenborough at times and concentrated on physical activities at Wellesley Park when possible.

He said most of the tactical and fitness work was done in the pre-season and players now just had to keep ticking over.

Morton added a lighter touch to the training dilemma by recalling the old days, when it was thought players might be more hungry for the ball when the weekend arrived if they had not been able to train with the ball during the week because of ground closures caused by the wet weather.

Photo: Glen McNeill, the Olympia Warriors coach, would like his side to finish second on the Victory League standings [PlessPix]

Olympia Warriors coach, Glen McNeill, said his team was still hoping to finish second.

“The championship is done and dusted and congratulations to South Hobart,” McNeill said.

“We are really looking to make a better account of ourselves from the previous time we played South Hobart.

“We went missing a bit in that match and we’re looking to make amends.

“I would ideally like to finish second. The odds would be against us. We have a huge challenge this Sunday against South Hobart, but, ideally, that’s where I’d like to finish.

“We want to make a really good game of it.”

McNeill said it was good to have Lachlan Nichols back from suspension.

“He’ll bring some quality and some drive,” McNeill said.

“Our Korean, Jin, has bruised his foot and we’ll have to assess him on Sunday.

“Nicholas Mearns and Jonathon Griffiths will be away on a school camp and, at this point, they are the changes.”

Photo: Olympia Warriors midfielder Lachlan Nichols said his side were highly motivated for Sunday's clash [PlessPix]

Nichols said it would not be difficult to motivate the Olympia players as they had a big point to prove after the hiding they received from South Hobart the last time the teams met.

“Going into the finals, for us to be taken seriously, we’ve really got to match it with them this week,” Nichols said.

“We didn’t pressure last time and you need to do that against quality opposition otherwise they’ll just run rings around you, which is what they did last time.

“It’s really up to us to pressure the team and we’ve got to be more composed as well. One per cent, we just need to take time on the ball and do things right and have quality around the pitch.”

no 23 if any coach could have his players train around 4 days a week have the resources available to him and have players who are fully committed to the cause I have know doubt they could achieve what mr may has achieved

Well to be straight forward to all of you ,you can lift the standard of football in the state by coaching correctly from a young age and still build spot competition amongst players, you dont have to impot.Have a look at the NTC whether you like Mr May or not he is setting a higher coacing standard for the state whe these kids go bak to club.that is why Ken is taking his crumbs.Sly old dog.If Dean May went to coach at club he would knock Kenny straight off his perch ,No doubt at all.But why woul he go to club-to enjoy the political crap .

By scouts, I'm guessing he has a friend of a friend who mowes someones lawn and watches the odd Sunday league game and this then qualifies them as Ken's scout!!

It maybe quite a good idea to take note of what Mr Morton does and what methods he uses! You have to realize that Ken and SHFC have been THE MOST SUCCESSFUL football team in Tassie for a number of years now!!I would also suggest you keep your Gob shut till you understand the way our Beautiful game actually works!! I thank you PLEASE...

Fully agree with you #16 in respect to creating a league to aspire to. Challenges, competitiveness, a bit cut throat, all that stuff is what I like to see as well. But these 8 or 9 high quality imports are not going to play for free, and I just don't think there is enough money going around to support 8 V League teams all doing this. And, if one does, and the others can't, I can't see it being viable long term. I don't have a magic bullet, I'm just saying, I think $ will be our long term problem.